Voters see it as a key issue, but don't yet recognise its severity
British voters, especially national populists, are annoyed by small boats, high immigration and pro-Palestine marches, but most do not yet realise the transformative scale of today’s immigration levels. Ahead of the publication of UK migration statistics later this week, they are not sufficiently agitated to support an electoral insurgency.
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The academic Matthew Goodwin pointed out that voters support the Rwanda scheme by a 40-32 margin, rising to 71% among 2019 Tory voters. YouGov’s most important issues tracker shows that immigration is, for the first time since Brexit, the top issue for Conservatives, and a leading concern for 37% of the public.
On the other hand, by a 57-20 margin, people support Suella Braverman’s sacking from the post of home secretary, as does a slim 44-39 share of 2019 Tory voters and Leave voters. How can we make sense of these apparently contradictory findings? To find out, I conducted a small survey of 289 2019 Conservative voters on Prolific, a platform used by many academics, on Monday. The sample divided 43-39 in favour of sacking Braverman, about the same as YouGov’s nationally representative data from last week.
Continue reading the entire piece here at UnHerd
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Eric Kaufmann is professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London and an adjunct fellow of the Manhattan Institute.
Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
